1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process to treat a fluid column by removing organics, metals and other non-organic contaminants, and provides discharge within regulatory and environmental limits. The invention includes design of an improved electrical treatment process, a process flow allowing rapid and economical treatment of a contaminated fluid column. The invention also includes a process for regenerating activated carbon as an active unit of the treatment process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Processes to treat water contaminated with dissolved and suspended organic materials have existed for many years. One of the largest contributors to contamination of the world's beaches is the dumping of bilge water at sea. The hydrocarbons contained in bilge water are one of the many sources of tar balls that show up on the beaches. A very small amount of hydrocarbons dissolved in seawater will adversely affect plankton population.
A wide variety of chemical and mechanical processes have been developed to treat contaminated fluid columns. Typically, techniques known to the prior art attempt to remove the dissolved and suspended contaminants utilizing chemical or mechanical processes to coalesce the impurities allowing removal by filtration, centrifuges, separators, or clarifiers. Prior art processes attempt to remove hydrocarbons by absorption, oxidation or ultra-filtration. Some patents that disclose such efforts are as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,969,245, issued to Ramirez on Jul. 13, 1976, teaches an electrocoagulation system for removing pollutants from wastewater including: flowing wastewater through an electrocoagulation cell having rod-shaped electrodes to produce an embryo floc; treating the wastewater with a flocculent to form a full floc; creating laminar flow and skimming the floc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,755, issued to LaCrosse on Jan. 12, 1993, teaches an ultraviolet enhanced ozone wastewater treatment system including: mixing ozone with wastewater; removing suspended solids in a multi-stage clarifier; exposing clarified effluent to ultraviolet radiation (to reduce bacteria and generate OH radicals); recirculating the effluent for additional ozone injection and UV irradiation, and filtering effluent.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,234,606, issued to Karazma et al. on Aug. 10, 1993, teaches a method for treating water polluted by organic chlorine compound including: adding oxidizing agent to raw water disinfect bacteria; removing suspended solids; irradiating the raw water with ultraviolet rays to decompose organic chlorine compounds, and reducing residual oxidizing agents by activated carbon and catalytic resin.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,560,831, issued to Bladen et al. on Oct. 1, 1996, teaches a method for washing agricultural products including feeding water containing contaminants washed from agricultural products to a series of coagulation steps (feeding the underflow of the second and successive compartments); treating ultimate underflow with ozone and recirculating underflow to wash agricultural products.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,257, issued to Coate el al. on Oct. 21, 1997, teaches a wastewater system including adjusting PH value; applying ozone and ultrasound; applying ozone and ultraviolet light, and applying a magnetic field and an electrochemical process. The system further includes filtering steps.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,403, issued to Hayashi on Mar. 30, 1999, teaches a wastewater treatment system including an ozone mixer, a magnetic force, a filter, a second ozone mixer, a second magnetic force, an activated carbon reaction vessel and a second filter.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,027,653 issued to Holland on Feb. 22, 2000 teaches the utilization of a solidifying organic polymer-based filtration media and activated carbon placed in separate containers and arranged in an in-line, two phase process to extract organic compounds and metals from feed streams containing emulsified or suspended concentrations of organic contaminants by absorbing and solidifying the organics into an easily retrievable, disposable mass.
Prior art methods have met with some success, however, they do not achieve the level of success of the system of current invention, which includes, among other things, injection of ozone prior to an electrocoagulation processing and re-circulation of the treated wastewater to re-charge an activated hydrocarbon filter.